


little time, little light

by Antarktica



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Reflection, Tahiti Philinda, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:34:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25936747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antarktica/pseuds/Antarktica
Summary: "This is what a man beyond his time gets, Melinda."
Relationships: Phil Coulson/Melinda May
Comments: 5
Kudos: 42





	little time, little light

**Author's Note:**

> so i took the advice and decided to share the pain that is my philinda drafts. have fun. or get a tissue.

She wonders― as she intertwines their hands together, feeling the still callousness his palms possessed, and how he'd brush his thumb over the back of her hand, letting her know he's _alive_ _―_ as to when it would happen.

Right now?

When he's holding her in his arms, not ready to let go of the life they had arrived too late in to even savor. Their life is unlike wine. Wine tasted better as it got older. This was the opposite. Time wasn't kind to anyone.

Melinda supposes they were the collective _anyone_. They couldn't go to this plane back then, too risky, too...out of reach. She'd thought they would deplete of their 'out-of', _out of time_ might be their last.

She avoids heaving a sigh. Sucking all her worries that make her sick to her stomach, feelings she cannot allow herself to face lest the little time she has with him will be spent in unwelcome tears. She wouldn't let him see the damage. He has enough to worry about. Phil has always been able to read her, but he doesn't say it. Yet he holds her tighter, pressing a light kiss on her forehead.

Kisses didn't do well to ease the worry out of Melinda these days. The intimacy was appreciated and she happily reciprocates it. Sometimes, she couldn't help but cry at the tiniest and softest kisses that Phil plants on her. She tries to wave it off, telling him it doesn't concern him.

He _worries_. He always looks her in the eyes when he is trying to make a point of a subject, she shies away from it almost like a reflex until he leans down kisses the last bit of her worries away, making it his.

Melinda couldn't quite tell if the days were getting bleaker each passing moment or if it was her tears welling up and threatening to betray her façade. She lets her fingers over the reminder that he'd once been taken away from her―the days she'd spent wallowing down the hollow husk that was once had been herself, the funeral where she stood in the back, hoping he'd just taken her with him.

And maybe he did.

He came back then. She cherished those moments―even the bitter parts where he'd spent nearly a month hating her very existence. It was easy if Phil had just told her that he was _mad_ at her.

No, he said that he _hated_ her. And it's a price she paid, but the universe keeps taking **.** Taking his conscience, his function―his soul.

_This is what a man beyond his time gets, Melinda._

He tells her those words in passing, before lifting the glass to his lips and letting the warmth burn through the numbness resting in the pits of his stomach. She'd assumed it made him feel a little _more than alive_.

But he was wrong.

He was a man taken out of his time by a god who did not know better, that _nobody_ would be the result of his downfall. His heart had been pierced. His left lung mere collateral damage to the wake he leaves.

And if she closes her eyes, she'll feel him drifting away and out of her grasps soon. And all she can do is watch it unfold.

_She could handle a second death, couldn't she?_

Melinda had nearly hit Fury when he'd told her that _despite_ everything, Coulson's death had _done more good_ than _bad._ He knew as soon as those words left his mouth, that the lightning would strike down upon him.

It didn't.

It left him in a shivering anticipation of its arrival as Melinda stares him _blank- blanker_ than Bahrain. Fury realizes his mistake. He had been at the brink of ultimatum on whether or not to execute itーtoday was a testament that he should.

He already had one Avenger fall; he couldn't take a second.

Phil had only stared at her when he'd come back from his swim and arrived to her tear-stricken face. She was attempting on wiping the evidence off her face, it was futile now that Phil had caught her.

He was about to tell her something. The ever-present twinkle in those blue eyes of his fading into a melancholy staring her right on her eyes. Melinda had almost shied away from his faze out of reflex. They bore a hole in her defenses. She _hated_ that he saw her like this. She _hated_ that she still couldn't find the strength in herself to accept what he wanted so she could truly be _happy_ while he spends his time with her, on what's remaining of it.

She wanted to feel less selfish when it comes to him. But he'd made his place in her heart once upon a time ago, his death had carved it hollow. And now it's coming to take more than she could handle. If she looks further than where they are now, she couldn't see herself living in it.

The thought makes her stomach churn in worse ways than Bahrain ever did.

She doesn't know what else to take rather than this. What little she could have. To be greedy with it is a thought that crosses her mind yet she cannot allow herself to go there. She'll never be able to let go of it.

He hasn't moved from where he stood by their front door. The moonlight bouncing off of his figure and then his eyes as he inches closer to her. He'd already toweled himself dry before he'd come in, always complaining about wet floorboards she leaves in her wake and he'd ended up hoisting her up his shoulders to keep her from causing anymore chaos. That felt normal.

He wipes off the remaining tears on her face and doesn't say anything more than what he wants her to know.

"I'm yours."

_For how long?_


End file.
